Various beverages, particularly alcoholic beverages, are often sold in bottles which are packaged, stored, and sold in decorative gift cartons. For example, half gallon liquor bottles are often packaged in such cartons and such liquor bottles usually have a comparatively large lower body which tapers to a centrally disposed vertically extending elongated neck which is provided with a closure in the form of a screw cap or a stopper. These cartons are usually placed on and removed from store shelves and carried by grasping each carton with a thumb extending down one side thereof and the fingers down the opposed side thereof and the compressive loads on the carton are usually such that each of the previously proposed cartons caves in near the top leaving not only a weakened gift carton but one that is unsightly.
It is also common practice in the liquor industry to dispose a plastic sleeve, or the like, around the lower portion of a bottle closure and the upper portion of the bottle neck and shrink such sleeve in position so that it must be cut or severed in order to remove the cap or stopper. The usual procedure is to fill the bottle with liquor, place the closure in position, dispose the closed bottle in a gift carton, and dispose the shrinkable sleeve around the neck and closure so that upon shrinking thereof the sleeve forms the above-mentioned seal between the closure and neck. However, it is important that such shrinkable sleeve not be moved or wrinkled until it has had an opportunity to shrink in position whereby the usual practice heretofore employing previously proposed cartons has been to delay closing the carton a sufficient time to allow the sleeve to shrink in position and thereby prevent the unshrunk sleeve from being damaged or pushed a substantial distance downwardly along the neck of the bottle toward the body of such bottle thus effectively moving the upper portion of the unshrunk sleeve so that it does not engage the closure once it shrinks in position thereby in effect frustrating the purpose of providing such a sleeve.
Accordingly, previously proposed cartons of the character mentioned are deficient in that they have sides which tend to collapse near their upper ends when grasped in the manner mentioned above for carrying purposes. In addition, such cartons are such that they require substantial time delays in order to allow unshrunk sleeves employed on associated bottles to shrink in position before closing of such cartons.